John'Verse: Journey On
by Stolen Childe
Summary: John'Verse Story Seventeen. Dean's son is going to school for the very first time and Dean doesn't like it – Step one: back to school shopping, step two: deal with empty nest syndrome later.


**Title:** Journey On

**Author:** Stolen Childe

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Dean, Castiel or Sam. Just playing.

**Warnings/Content:** Kid!fic, future!fic, anxious!fathers, lite angst, fluff, humour, back to school shopping

**Rating:** G-PG

**Pairing/Characters:** Dean/Castiel, Jasper(child OC), John T.(Child OC)

**Word Count:** 2400

**Summary:** Dean's son is going to school for the very first time and Dean doesn't like it – Step one: back to school shopping, step two: deal with empty nest syndrome later.

**Author's Notes:** Here's a lovely little fluffy Jasper piece for my John'Verse. Readers were asking and I could only oblige. I do like Jasper. This story goes back to the original concept of my John'Verse – light fluffy family fun. Please enjoy Story Seventeen!

John's Age: 15

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**Journey On**

Dean was standing in the kitchen, trying to fight the anxious crawling feeling that threatened to consume him. It was late summer and birds were chirping, cicadas singing in the afternoon light. A gentle breeze trickled in through the open window because they couldn't afford air conditioning. The breeze was warm and not entirely pleasant but it was better than the all-consuming stuffy heat that would be there if the window was shut.

Dean wanted to put this off for one more year, hold on a little while longer and not let it happen. Squash it down with all his might and pretend just for a while that it wasn't the right thing to do. Though withholding this rite any longer than Dean already had been, was borderline cruel and the last thing he ever wanted to do was be cruel.

A horn honking out in the driveway startled Dean into action as much as he rather just stay rooted to the spot and put it off a little while longer, he moved.

"Come on Dad! Let's go!" John's chipper voiced called out through the open window of the car. He was leaning over Castiel's shoulder and staring into the house waving wildly and looking utterly aggrieved.

"Luke's gonna be there already!" John shouted out. Castiel turned and gave their eldest a firm look and grumbling John settled back into his seat. Dean shut and locked the door to the house behind him and walked like a man condemned to the passenger side of Castiel's Mustang. Dean hadn't felt much like driving and Jasper's booster seat was in the Mustang already anyway.

"You're in my clothes," Dean commented once he noticed the jeans and t-shirt ensemble Castiel was clad in.

"John refuses to allow me to go out in public with him with my suit and coat. I assumed this was the fastest way to avoid an uncomfortable situation."

"Pop you look like a massive freak if you go out in a full suit and trench coat in the middle of summer," John rolled his eyes. Castiel blinked blankly back at their son and Dean couldn't even find it in himself to chastise the boy for speaking to his father like that.

"Let's get this over with," Dean muttered, slamming the heavy steel of the door behind him.

"Dean…"

"Just drive Cas."

"Jeeze Dad, what took you so long anyway?" John leaned forward again to stare into the side of Dean's head. Dean didn't respond and when John went to open his mouth again Castiel shot their older son a quelling look through the rear-view mirror.

"John, enough."

John snapped his jaw shut at the archangel's words and leaned back in his seat, brooding out the window.

Castiel eased the car out of the driveway and headed out. Normally, Dean would be sitting white-knuckled as Castiel wove the Mustang through the busy downtown streets but today he couldn't even be bothered to worry. It was never really necessary anyway. Castiel had always been a surprisingly good driver ever since Dean forced him into the driver's side of the Impala when John was just a baby snoozing in the back. Sam looked at Dean as if he had been crazy to take the infant out on Castiel's first driving attempt but caught between leaving their newborn with Sam or taking him in the car Dean opted that the car was the better option. God he had been so paranoid when John was first born, way over protective and also utterly indulgent. Maybe that's why their eldest could be such a brat sometimes, though he was a good kid at his core, always had been.

"Hey…" John said idly from the back seat. "Can I drive home?"

"No," Dean and Castiel answered together. John pouted.

The drive to the mall was uneventful and really Dean wasn't surprised it was the middle of the week after all, early afternoon and there weren't that many people on the roads. This was the only day Dean would allow them to venture anywhere near anything even resembling a mall especially around this time of year.

After Castiel settled the car into a parking spot and turned off the ignition and neither adult moved John pushed impatiently against the back of Castiel's seat which had Castiel shaking his head and sliding out. He pushed his seat forward barely in time before John came barrelling out.

"Gotta meet Luke!"

"Keep your phone on!" Dean shouted after the rapidly retreating boy. John waved distractedly behind him and Dean just about had a heart attack as he watched John dodge a car pulling out of the next lane over of parking spaces.

"Jesus," Dean breathed out.

"I do believe he has a…" Castiel drifted for a moment as he leaned into the driver's side, "I think the word is 'crush,' on Lukas Brayburn."

"Do we like Luke?" Dean asked.

Castiel thought for a moment, "We prefer Luke over Chelsea." Dean nodded and still hadn't made a move to get out of the car. Jasper remained quiet in the back seat and Castiel slid back inside, he tapped the wheel distractedly for a moment and gazed over at Dean.

"Dean…"

"Can't we just…"

Jasper looked back and forth between his two parents then bit his lip, "Daddy… I can… I can stay home this year, if that's what you want. I… I don't need to start yet…"

Dean felt a guilty little coil in his gut at his five-year-old's so innocent and so earnest words. Their little boy, forever trying to please them, no matter what. If they let him, Dean figured Jasper would do just about anything to make them happy. That was way too much weight for a five-year-old to hold on his tiny shoulders and that more than anything put Dean in motion.

Dean clicked off his seatbelt and opened the door, at the motion Jasper hurried to follow and spent a few second wrestling with the clasp before he managed to get the old belt free. Dean pushed his seat forward and where normally he'd let Jasper jump out on his own Dean leaned in and picked their son up, holding him against his side and braced on his hip as he waited for Cas to get out and lock the car.

Castiel came up behind them and put a gentle hand on the small of Dean's back, "All ready then?"

Dean tried a grin and felt it marginally successful, "Okay Jass, same rules we gave your brother on his first big school shopping trip. You get to pick the outfits, but your Pop and I have final veto power, capiche?"

Jasper flashed his gap-tooth grin, "Gotcha." He had lost a tooth last week and the empty space made him look even more adorable than he already was. Dean dropped a kiss to his dark waves of hair and Jasper tightened his arms around Dean's neck.

"You do remember what veto means right?' Dean asked.

Jasper nodded, "Uh huh! Means you get to say no, no matter what, if you think it's… ah… inappropriate," the boy said his words carefully, "or too… expensive."

"Right, in other words?"

"Ugly or costs too much," Jasper giggled.

"Aren't you just smart as a whip, you don't even need school," Dean commented.

"Dean," Castiel's tone was gentle but warning, he knew Jasper just as well as Dean did and even mild throw-away comments like that, their youngest may take wrong and back out of agreeing to go to school. It wasn't that Jasper didn't want to, he pretty well wanted too since he was two and a half and saw John running off to catch the bus, but Jasper knew intuitively that Dean didn't want to let him go and in effort to please his father Jasper would try and talk Dean around it.

_Right,_ Dean thought, _important rite of passage. Jasper needs to go regardless of my feelings, he needs to make friends outside of family…But he's not going to be my little boy any more…_

"Dean…" Castiel said quietly again, pausing as they crossed into the foyer of the mall. Dean turned to his angel and saw that Castiel looked utterly stricken, eyes a little wider than before as his gaze stole across Dean's face.

"Damnit Cas, stay outta my head," Dean said fondly, quickly cupping at the nape of Castiel's neck and pushing their foreheads together, "you're gonna get yourself all upset."

"But Dean… I didn't think of…" Castiel bit his lip. "Let's go." Castiel began to move quickly forward and Dean reached out and snagged his hand, tugging Castiel back and passing Jasper easily from his hold to Castiel's. Dean winked and Cas smiled gratefully.

"Stop thinking so loud, then," Castiel chastised gently once he was settled by the weight of his son in his arms.

"Sorry, sorry… Not my fault you forgot to put on your bracelet," Dean joked, moving to walk next to Castiel, hands tucked in his pockets as he bumped their shoulders together. Once Gabriel realized that Castiel was unaccustomed to the strength of an archangel, he had forged a bracelet to help damper the abilities when Castiel was out in public. Even after nearly nine years of his increased powers, Castiel still sometimes had trouble controlling small bursts of power if something set him off. Part of these bursts included his empathy towards his children and the ability to crawl into Dean's head and chill like he belonged there.

"I feel blind with it," Castiel remarked. "I'll be all right. It's getting easier as John and Jasper are getting older. I think they serve to balance me out a little."

"Handy," Dean replied, "but regardless… I don't wanna see you freak out so…" Dean slid the brown leather cuff free from his pants pocket and tied it around Castiel's left wrist. Castiel blinked dumbly for a moment before offering up a little smile.

"Kinda look sexy with it on anyway," Dean winked again.

Castiel raised an eyebrow, "Just kind of?"

Dean chuckled, "Okay, okay. Real sexy."

"I wanna go there!" Jasper exclaimed suddenly as he squirmed to be let down. Reluctantly Castiel conceded, and Jasper didn't let go for long, once he was on his feet he immediately grabbed Castiel's hand and tugged. He was kind of funny to watch as the motion have no effect whatsoever on the older angel until Dean nudged Castiel with his elbow and nodded his head forward. Castiel then allowed himself to be pulled as Jasper weaved his way through the smallish crowd and stopped in front of a brightly coloured display window.

"I want that," Jasper proclaimed, pointing to a shirt in the window. For a moment Dean wasn't sure which one until he realized Jasper was indicating a soft rose coloured t-shirt that sported a skateboarding cat wearing white sunglasses.

"I like cats," Jasper said.

Dean winced a little, "Ah Jass… maybe they have it in a different colour how about we—"

"Daddy, I like pink."

"Dean," Castiel chastised.

"Jeeze Cas, is it even a boy's shirt?" Dean grumbled as they entered the store. Castiel shot Dean a look that the man clearly interpreted as 'what difference does gender possibly make with clothing?'

"Right, right, talking to the wrong person here…" Dean sighed.

"He likes it Dean," Castiel said simply as Jasper wove through the store to the display.

"Papa, what size?" Jasper frowned. Castiel blinked then looked over at Dean who rolled his eyes and pulled the correct shirt free from its pile… maybe it was unisex, aside from the colour the other shirts surrounding it were pretty gender neutral.

"We'll see what he picks to go with it, I'm this close to using my veto," Dean held up thumb and forefinger to demonstrate and Castiel shot him a 'don't you dare' look in response.

Jasper was clearly excited now as he buzzed around from display to display and pile to pile. He pointed to a few pairs of jeans that Dean could get behind, a pair of brown cords that he almost tossed aside but was quelled once again by Castiel. When Jasper finally decided it was time to get more shirts Dean braced himself, expecting more pink or maybe purple monstrosities. Dean wasn't exactly what you'd call straight and what other people wore was their business but he was also a little more old-school than he sometimes liked to admit. As much as on the surface he would protest that clothing did not at all depict sexual orientation and that thinking of it that way was archaic, when Jasper had first picked out the pink shirt Dean could only dread what the other boys at school would say. He didn't want his son to go through that.

When Jasper had his armful of clothing and had disappeared into the change room – _no Daddy, Papa, I __**don't**_ _need your help_ – Dean could only sit back and nurse his anxiety. Castiel however, was the picture of calm – the bastard – after all half the time unless under John's strict demands the archangel walked around in an eighteen-year-old suit.

So when Jasper emerged with a wide grin on his face in artfully ripped jeans, his ugly-ass pink shirt and a brown button down Dean could only be impressed. Apparently his five-year-old was a heck of a lot more fashion forward than Dean gave him credit for, if the 'aws' from the women behind him and Cas were anything to go by. Jasper paraded out in outfit after outfit, incredibly pleased with himself and Dean didn't even have to use his veto power once. In fact they were all variations of what audacious eight-year-old Mary had labeled 'Winchester-chic' and Dean could only grin.

"All right Kiddo, gotta hand it to you, you did good," Dean ruffled Jasper's hair after Castiel handed over their credit card. Castiel carefully punched in the pin number for the card and took both the plastic and the bags with unnecessary solemnity. Dean faintly wondered when Castiel would get over the novelty of paying for things.

"Yes, your father and I had to 'veto' any number of your brother's outfits when we took him school shopping for the first time," Castiel agreed. Dean helped with some of the bags so they each had a hand free for Jasper to hold. Jasper scooted in between them and grasped them both tugging back a little and taking the hint Dean and Cas swung him back and forth a few a few times as they walked. Jasper giggled and beamed up at his parents.

"Thank you Papa, Daddy. This was fun. I think I like shopping."

"Oh dear god," Dean groaned.

"It's all right," Castiel muttered to Dean over Jasper's head as the boy happily skipped and jumped between them, "at least Sam and Mary now have someone to go with them."

Dean chuckled.

**The End**


End file.
